This invention relates to a slot machine with improved entertainment for the player.
Slot machines are among the most popular games at casinos. In early mechanical machines, the player inserts a coin or token into a slot and pulls a lever. The slot machine spins a plurality of reels (usually between three and five reels) each having a variety of symbols along their outer circumference. The player wins or loses depending upon whether the symbols that come to rest at the front of each reel match, usually above some “line” at the front of the slot machine. More particularly, the player wins or loses (or the amount that the player wins) depends upon how many of the reels resulted in matching symbols. The amount the player wins may also depend upon which symbols were matched.
The early slot machines were entirely mechanical. The random occurrence of each symbol was determined only by when the reels happened to come to a stop (or, more specifically, when they were braked to a stop). With the advent of electronics and microprocessors, the random selection was determined in electronic circuits. Electronic controls spun the reels and stopped them where the electronic circuits indicated that they should be stopped. In other words, the reels were simply a means of displaying the random output of the electronics and were not actually involved in the determination of the outcome.
In some slot machines, even the traditional mechanical reels have been replaced with less expensive, easier-to-maintain electronic video displays. However, for the most part, slot machine manufacturers have simply mimicked the old, mechanical slot machines. The video display displays rotating reels in an attempt to provide the player with the traditional look and feel of an old mechanical slot machine. Some machines have provided additional animation only in a “bonus” round, where a random activity, such as a fisherman randomly hooking fish with different values, is animated on the video display.
This may be acceptable for players who are only looking for a nostalgic slot machine experience; however, there are generations of potential slot machine players who grew up playing video games with much more complicated computer generated graphics. For these potential slot machine players, simply replicating the limitations of the old mechanical slot machines is unacceptable and uninteresting.